Pathfinder Online dev blog talks dynamic PvE, escalation

Pathfinder Online's website has updated with a two-pronged dev blog attack. The first salvo concerns Kickstarter updates and more importantly, when backers will start receiving some of their rewards. The game's pledge management system is coming next week, so be sure you have a Paizo.com account set up and ready to receive rewards like the PDF superpack.

The second portion of the update concerns escalation cycles and escalation mechanics which tie into Pathfinder's version of PvE content. "An escalation is a dynamic story event such as a Bonedancer goblin invasion, an outbreak of widespread banditry from the League of the Wood, or a raid of dark elf slavers," the blog explains.

Goblinworks says that its escalation mechanics are such that players will encounter a wide variety of content and story scenarios. "The combination of different types of strength-based advances, expansion preference, stage advances, and quests associated with stages provides us with a wide variety of tools for creating very different experiences from escalation to escalation," the company says. "Some escalations like the barbarian raid will effectively march across the map; some will reach a defensible limit and fort up; some will keep trying to expand indefinitely and attempt to overrun the entire map."